Everyone knows Spider-Man is one of New York’s greatest heroes, which is why it’s so notable that this weekend’s episode of Ultimate Spider-Man has Spidey moving to… Boston? Yes, in the episode, called “Spidah-Man”, Peter Parker leaves NYC for Beantown, in an adventure written by Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada, and his longtime collaborator Jimmy Palmiotti. I spoke to Quesada about the episode and bringing Spider-Man to such a different environment. We also talked about Joss Whedon’s live-action S.H.I.E.L.D. TV pilot, the future of Marvel animation and more.

IGN TV: How did it come about that you and Jimmy collaborated on writing this episode?

Joe Quesada: You know, I wrote an outline for the episode. Sort of wishful thinking, looking at my schedule, I was hoping to have time to write the whole episode by myself. But then as reality started to sit in with how much work I have to do here with Marvel, it became very, very clear that I was going to need somebody to help me write the script. So I figured who better a person than Jimmy, who I’ve worked with for over two decades on comic book-related stuff. We actually hadn’t worked together in awhile. I thought it was a fun project, especially because there was so much humor involved in this particular episode. Jimmy’s got a great knack for that.

IGN: You have a very distinctive setup here: Spider-Man, the quintessential New York superhero, going to Boston. Can you talk a bit about that storyline?

Quesada: Yeah, the actual idea for Spider-Man going to Boston was something that originated in the publishing group with the Spider-Man writers and myself at one of our Spider-Man summits. Unfortunately, because of all the big Spider-Man stories we wanted to tell, it was a story that looked like we weren’t going to get to anytime soon [in the comics]. But I had thought about writing an episode for this particular cartoon series, and I thought, “You know, that Boston idea would be a real blast, it’d be a lot of fun. I think kids would really enjoy it.” So I talked to Spider-Man editor Stephen Wacker, and he dug the idea as well. So I just took that idea of Spider-Man as a fish out of water and ran with it.

IGN: Can you talk a bit about what Spider-Man’s interaction with Boston will be like in the episode?

Quesada: Yeah, I was about to say, we could have put Spider-Man in any city, in any other fish-out-of-water situation, but the idea of him being in Boston -- especially if you’re a sports fanatic like me and you understand that in every major North American sport, there is a huge New York/Boston rivalry no matter which way you slice it. Whether it’s Patriots and Jets or Yankees and Red Sox, you name it, it runs really, really deep with the culture of both of those cities. So the idea that Spider-Man, who is the quintessential, iconic New York superhero, trades and goes to Boston to become Boston’s superhero, to me, was just an incredible, great story.

IGN: So what is it that has him going to Boston? What would make him leave New York?

Quesada: Well, it’s a convergence of two things. Number one, the mayor of Boston in this particular show realizes that New York’s got all the superheroes and Boston doesn’t really have any. In order for Boston to really get on the map in the superhero world, they need a superhero. And it’s not lost upon him that Peter Parker really doesn’t get much of a fair shake in New York City. J. Jonah Jameson is constantly berating him as a menace and just an awful human being. So the mayor of Boston is smart enough to put the feelers out and basically make Spider-Man an offer that would be very difficult for him to refuse. The second thing is that it happens to come at a time when Peter Parker, Spider-Man, is feeling at an all-time low in New York City. He’s getting no respect as a superhero, and maybe Boston is the place to be. Maybe he can start fresh there, and he does, and it starts out pretty cool.

IGN: Can you talk about what villains he might encounter in this episode?

Quesada: One of the villains he encounters is actually one of the villains from the comics, a character by the name of Steel Spider. It’s the Ultimate version of it, so he’s tweaked a little bit. But then there are three brand new villains, a superhero team, that I created specifically for the episode. So these are characters that nobody’s ever seen before, not in the comics or anywhere. So anybody tuning into the show will actually see these villains for the very, very first time. They are all from Boston and quintessentially Boston, because one of the things that happens to Spider-Man is that when he gets to Boston, life is good. Not only does he have great respect from people in Boston, but there are no supervillains there because there’s never been a superhero. Well, unfortunately, now that he’s in town, things are going to start to change. That’s when the rubber meets the road with this story.

IGN: As you said, this is a more humorous take on Spider-Man. Has it been fun for you to approach it from that point of view, versus the comic books where things can sometimes get pretty heavy for the character?

Quesada: Yeah, that’s one of the things that’s always made Spider-Man such a wonderful hero; people love his sense of humor. While, yes, in the TV show we can’t get as heavy as the comic books do from time to time -- because we are playing to a different audience -- for the most part, Ultimate Spider-Man is an action adventure show with superheroics and some humor sprinkled in. But every once in awhile, every four or five episodes, we’ll throw in an episode that’s really, really heavy on the humor sprinkled with some superhero action, and that’s kind of what this one is. This one is really a humorous setup that puts Spider-Man in a great position to succeed as Boston’s superhero. We get the opportunity to poke fun at both New York and Boston and the rivalry to sort of show how both cities are really very much the same, they just have different accents, and we just go from there. If you’re from Boston, you’re gonna get poked a little bit and you’ll probably laugh at yourself a little bit. If you’re from New York, you’re gonna get poked as well.

Continue to Page 2 as Quesada talks more about collaborating with Palmiotti again, what he’s seen of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the future of Marvel animation.